


a heart that's broke is a heart that's been loved

by MaddieandChimney



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Blood, F/M, implied past domestic violence, mentions of injury, mentions of stabbing (canon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: Bad Things Happen Bingo: "It's all my fault.".Maddie stumbles into the station at two in the morning, drunk and injured, intent on apologising to Chimney whilst they're meant to be taking a minute.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937749
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	a heart that's broke is a heart that's been loved

Maybe it’s the alcohol coursing through her veins. Or perhaps it’s the overwhelming guilt she’s felt for the past six weeks that she can’t quite seem to shake no matter what her therapist says. Either way, the two mixed together leads her to the station where she most definitely should not be.

Buck was on shift. And if Buck was on shift, then Chimney would be too and she needed to see him. Even if he didn’t want to see her, even if he never wanted to see her again, she _needed_ to see him. Selfish? Probably but there she was, stumbling into the station at two in the morning with blood pouring down her head and nose. And she can’t help but think that if Chimney completely rejects her, at least she has a ready-made excuse as to why she’s there in the first place (who wouldn’t go to the station where she knows paramedics are when the hospital is so much closer to her apartment?).

“Maddie?” Of course, it’s not Chimney or Buck who spots her first but Eddie, a man she barely knows but feels as though she does thanks to her brother. “Hey-hey, come on, let’s sit you down, right here, okay?” His voice is gentle, hand moving to take her arm as he leads her towards the back of one of the ambulances in the bay. “How much have you had to drink?”

Her nose scrunches up, flinching at the sudden pain it causes before she whines, “Want Chimney.” It’s only with a pout and big, tear-filled eyes that she looks at her brother’s best friend. “You’re very handsome but you’re not Chimney.”

It’s with a laugh that Eddie nods his head, “I’m going to take that as a lot and I’ll be right back, okay? You stay sitting right here. Don’t move.” Maddie watches him as he walks away, in the general direction of the Captain’s office she has never actually seen anyone go into and had been shrugged off by her brother when he’d given her the grand tour what seemed a lifetime ago. She supposes her brother is asleep, he’d once lectured her on the importance of being well rested, especially during an overnight shift. Maddie was more of the importance of having caffeine running through her veins variety.

“Maddie?” There’s the voice she wanted, the voice she hadn’t heard in three weeks since she had told her they were only taking a minute. He was being nice, Chimney is good and he is kind and he’d forgive her. She knows he will, even if he shouldn’t, even if she doesn’t deserve it. Eddie doesn’t return with him and she wonders where he’s disappeared to until her attention is completely on the man in front of her. He looks like he’d been asleep, his hair a little tousled and his eyes full of sleep. Yet another thing she can feel guilt for. “Looks like you took quite the fall against—a curb?”

The woman nods her head, “You’re so clever.”

“You’re very drunk.” He points out the obvious, his body close to hers as he leans further into the ambulance to grab a first aid kit from the side. “Will give you a banana bag to help sober you up in a minute, let’s just get you all sorted.” She doesn’t deserve the softness of his voice, she wishes she did but that amount of care he felt for her, should have disappeared the second her husband plunged a knife into his stomach.

“T-tripped,” She whispers, “face hurts.”

It’s with a hiss that she flinches back the second he rubs some antiseptic on her chin, “Sorry, I’m sorry.” She hates how apologetic he looks right then, wondering if she had ever apologised to him for what her husband had done out loud. It wasn’t his fault that she had tripped over air and slammed her face into the pavement. It wasn’t his fault that she had gotten to a little too drunk because she couldn’t sleep and she hoped that a little bit of wine would ease the tension in her body. Only one glass of wine became one bottle and then a second bottle and then she was waiting for an uber to get her to the station, tripping over when she had tried to give herself the sobriety test (and clearly failed). She had felt her chin scrapping along the ground, her head and nose making contact with the concrete first and she supposes if she had been a little more sober, she’d have tried to break her fall with her hands and not her face. “Think the blood made it look worse than it actually was, your nose isn’t broken… I’ll pop a few butterfly stitches on your chin and head.”

There’s a sadness in his eyes that never used to be there and she feels it in her bones that she’s the cause of it. She had been selfish, she had wanted to start a new life with him without ever leaving her old life truly behind her and Doug had—Doug had wanted to steal that away from her. And it hadn’t been a surprise, not really, he’d always told her he would kill anyone who even looked at her that way… she should have known he’d follow through. She should have known the darkest person in her life would try and take away the ray of light she had found in LA.

“It’s all my fault.”

It’s only with a shrug, his tongue poking out between his lips as he concentrates on the wound on her head that he responds. Until he’s pulling back to look at her, “It happens to the best of us.”

Chimney thinks she means the fact she had fallen over drunk, and even in her current state it causes the tears to fall. Her bottom lip trembles and she reaches out a hand for his before she changes her mind. She doesn’t deserve his care or his attention, she most definitely does not deserve to touch him or to even think for a second how his lips would feel against her own. She can’t kiss him again, he needs to find someone who won’t hurt him, someone who would be selfless in the way he is.

“N-no,” She hiccups, “I-I—” Her eyes move to his shirt covered stomach, knowing what lies beneath, “I did that. It’s my fault. Y-you got stabbed, you could have died and I did that.”

It takes a moment to click and suddenly, his eyes are wide and he’s practically slamming himself down onto his knees in front of her, both his hands moving to her knees. “You didn’t do that, Maddie, Doug did.” Her therapist says it all the time, and she had hoped hearing it come from his lips would be enough to stop the thoughts from whirring through her mind. Doug had been the one holding the knife, sure, but she had been the motivation. He didn’t hurt Chimney because he felt like it, because he had seen him in the street and just thought about it. He hurt the amazing man kneeling in front of her right then with tears pouring down pale cheeks because of her. Because she had fallen for him in a way she never should have. She was on the run from her abusive husband, she should never have dragged Chimney into it.

“It’s my fault.” She whimpers, “I shouldn’t have gotten so attached to you, I-I knew… I knew he would find me one day and I put you in danger and you got stabbed. You got stabbed and you could have died, I thought you had died—for twenty-four hours, I thought you were dead. There was so much blood a-and he stabbed you because of me. I never thought I was selfish before but—” Maddie hiccups, rubbing her eyes in a futile attempt to stop the tears from falling, “Selfish. M’so selfish. Wanted you—s-still want you—shouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

It’s with a sob that she finishes her rambling, her bottom lip quivering in a way she is sure is re-opening up the cut on her chin. “Maddie…” It’s as though he doesn’t know what to say and she must be right, everything she had feared and her therapist and her brother had told her was untrue, was right. She was right. “You are the most selfless person I have ever met, all you’ve ever wanted to is help people and you—you are the first woman I have ever been able to be myself around because you are kind, beautiful in every way possible and so caring. You’re a good person, Maddie but Doug wasn’t. He hurt me because I was in the way of something—someone—that he wanted to hurt even more. That’s on him and it’s not on you, it’s never on you.” He takes a breath, slowly moving to stand up, lips moving to press against the top of her head and she can feel tears wetting her hairline as he does. “What happened… we can’t change that but I don’t blame you. I never even thought for a second there was anything to blame you for that and I wish you wouldn’t blame yourself.”

It’s too easy to give into the urge to wrap her arms around his waist and bury her face in his chest, despite the pain it causes as the alcohol slowly eases itself from her system. He’s warm and she can feel his heart beating against the side of her face as she holds him as tightly as she can when a sob falls. She hates the amount of relief she feels when his arms wrap around her in return, still feeling beyond unworthy of it but craving it all the same. He feels safe, being with him and around him, feeling his arms wrapped around her, she feels _safe_ and loved and cared for in a way she’s never had before.

There’s words of comfort being whispered in her ear, kisses being pressed to any uninjured part of her face he can reach when she finally pulls back enough to look into his eyes. How can he not blame her? How can he not hate her? “You’re going to be okay, I’m going to spend as long as it takes making sure you know what happened wasn’t your fault. Not even slightly. It’s on him, Maddie, it was all on him.”

It doesn’t ease the guilt that had led her to down the wine in the first place or the shame that had forced her to stumble into the station barely half an hour before in an attempt to apologise to the man in front of her. But it does force her to throw herself forward once more to retreat back to her safe place, her hands gripping around his shirt and her face hiding in the crook of his neck as she just breathes him in. Another apology dies on her lips when he pulls her as close as he possibly can, fingers tangling through her hair as he does, when he whispers, “We’re going to be okay _despite_ him. We’re going to be okay.”

And for a moment, she drinks it in and allows herself to believe that maybe they can be okay. Maybe it’s not okay to carry the guilt of what her husband had done to him, to them around with her. Just for a moment.


End file.
